FAISALABAD: A three-member committee, constituted by the Punjab government, visited Allied Hospital on Saturday to ascertain the reasons for death of more than 2,000 children at its paediatric ward in the last 10 months.

The committee, comprising Prof Humayun Iqbal, Dr Jamil and Mazhar Husain, recorded the statements of the staff, parents of the admitted children and the administration. It also inspected the machinery for treatment of the child patients and the workshop of the hospital.

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The government constituted the committee on being informed that 2,136 children had died at the paediatric ward of the hospital.

The paediatrics ward is understaffed and number of patients is increasing with every passing day.

In 1996, about 2,000 patients were being admitted to the ward on average that rose to more than 22,000 in 2013. The ward has just a 15-bed emergency and a 16-bed nursery and both the sections are overburdened as the nursery has more than 70 children while the emergency is accommodating more than 40 patients while the machinery and gadgets are also not sufficient.

Medical Superintendent Dr Rashid Maqbool said 14,054 patients had been admitted in last 10 months of them 2,136 passed away at the mortality rate of 15pc.

Perplexed over the situation, Prof Asghar Butt, head of the ward, had sent a letter (a copy available with Dawn) to the MS on the last Wednesday in which he had complained that the number of house officers was very small as compared to the other medical or surgical wards. He said one post of associate professor and two posts of senior registrars were lying vacant and one post of AP is shifted to paediatric unit-II in the DHQ Hospital.

A doctor, requesting anonymity, told Dawn it was very easy for them to control the death ratio if they would start refusing patients in critical conditions. He said instead of focusing on minimising the number of deaths, they were taking initiatives to save the life of a patient.

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“It is unjust that doctors are being criticised over number of deaths. Doctors must be appreciated that they are trying to treat patients with limited facilities,” he said, adding that refusing treatment to emergency patients was a sin. He said one could not imagine that how the doctors had been treating more than 120 patients in the emergency that was established only for 16 beds.

Following number of patients at the ward, the PMC had issued a notification on June 28 and Prof Hina Ayesha was made head of an outpatient department, separate from the ward. However, this new 15-bed unit is not dealing with emergency cases.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2014